Voice . 20 years. 20 years from being from finishing university, and thinking im out in the world, and now im going to write, and 20 years before i could write anything that looked to me like a book. Im tempted to ask, then, what kept you. That is what many people asked. Especially those who thought i would never be a novelist anyway. And i worried, myself, about it. My father used to say, well, where is it, then . That spurred me on. That must have annoyed you. I think my problem was that perhaps a bit over educated. I had been educated to revere the classic so much, to revere dh lawrence and tolstoy and dostoevsky and dickens. If i could be them, i didnt want to be anyone. So you wanted to be literary. Perhaps you were not confident in your own take on the world and your own voice, that it was worth listening to . Dead right. If what you had been reading was the great writers, and i revered them, and you think you do not measure up to that. At 18 and 25, i did not measure up to dosto
Im stephen sackur. Is the way we use words changing . Most of us probably write less than we used to, read less than we used to, and spend far more time staring at screens and tapping out messages. Does it matter to our relationships, our politics, our culture . Well, my guest today is conviced it does. Howard jacobsons meditations on life, love, jewishness, and a whole lot more have won him awards, including the man booker prize. But is he an artist swimming against an irresistible cultural tide . Howard jacobson, welcome to hardtalk. I am delighted to be here. Thank you for having me on. I want to ask you to reflect on a long writing career. How long, do you think, it took to you to find your own authentic writers voice . 20 years. 20 years from being from finishing university, and thinking im out in the world, and now im going to write, and 20 years before i could write anything that looked to me like a book. Im tempted to ask, then, what kept you. That is what many people asked. Es
Nervously to find out if theyve won. Well bring you the announcement of the winner live here on bbc news in the next hour. Raqqa has fallen. The Islamic State group has been driven from its de fa cto group has been driven from its de facto capital. This is in the north of syria and four months after the kurdish led, us backed Syrian Democratic forces began their offensive. It has now declared that the city has been completely liberated, with Ongoing Operations to comb and cleanse districts from the remnants of is. Raqqa was the first major city to be captured by is in 2014. It became the headquarters of what it calls its caliphate. This map shows in more detail the territory that Islamic State had at the beginning of 2015. All of this area marked in pink in syria and in iraq was controlled. Millions of people were under is rule. But this dark red area is what is controls now. I should tell you the us military is more cautious about raqqa. It says 90 of raqqa has been reta ken. About ra
Casts, is enormous, but how do you maintain that once it moves on to the next city . How do you keep the good times going . That is future planning and the legacy programme. We have spent over a year not planning for this year but beyond 2021, because we are City Of Culture for four years, but we are determined never to look back, to look forward and look at opportunities, and we are going to do that and that is what you need to do. You certainly need the public behind you. We had 80 of the public when asked by the judges that they knew about the City Of Culture and that they wanted that title. Tomorrow we will have the first of the regular bbc News Channel Programme beaching the highlights of the year as britains City Of Culture. That at 8 30pm on friday and across the weekend. The top stories. Us Attorney General, Jeff Sessions is to respond to calls for his resignation over undisclosed meetings with the Russian Ambassador. Well bring you that News Conference live from 9. The Police
Lets get the latest weather. Mixed bag of weather across the uk for the second part of the weekend. Scotland and Northern Ireland farewell with good spells of sunshine. A lot of cloud across england and wales with persistent rain in the southern part of Northern England and showers to the south of that. Gusty winds and some of the showers contain hail and snow as well. But it is drifting ever eastwards over the next few hours. A touch of frost but typically it is around three degrees. Wet across the South East Of England and some of the Rain Fringing into the south east of wales. Most of wales, the midlands and towards the south east, a reasonable start to the day. More cloud of the eastern counties of england but rain number less. Brighter in Northern Ireland. More cloud for large parts of scotland. Rain to be had in the north and the west and towards the Northern Ireland as well, where it will be breezy. Things will improve in the south west of england. The Rain Fragments into the la